Flux

Flux is a podcast about the pioneers building companies at the frontier of technology. This series of interviews goes beyond the soundbites, allowing some of the most interesting players in technology to share their insider expertise and explain the challenges they face in building the future.

Dean Kamen is an engineer, businessman and inventor who holds over 400 patents. He is the man behind the Segway as well as the first wearable infusion pump. Through his R&D company DEKA he has continued to deliver one innovation after the other, from the iBOT a motorized wheelchair that climbs stairs, to the Slingshot water purifier for the developing world, as well as the Stirling generator which turns waste into power. In this episode we get into Dean's thoughts on inventing, why he thinks we have a cultural crisis in education, and DEKA's recent dive into biology and the world of regenerative medicine. He shares why he thinks the world is headed for catastrophe and what he thinks we can do to ensure that in the race between education and catastrophe, education wins.

A full transcript of the conversation can be found on Flux's Medium account. The episode was produced by Allison Behringer.

Keller Rinaudo is the CEO of Zipline, a company building instant delivery that currently supplies 20% of Rwanda's national blood supply via drone. In this episode, we get into the future of autonomous infrastructure, the importance of government risk-taking when it comes to innovation, and what he thinks it will take for the U.S. to regain its entrepreneurial spirit. Keller also shares his thoughts on designing a full-stack hardware product and service, how his parents impacted his ability to be an entrepreneur, and how he has persevered in the face of naysayers.

An excerpt of this conversation is published in TechCrunch. The full transcript can be found on Flux's medium account. This episode was produced by Allison Behringer.

Arthur Hayes is the CEO of Hong Kong based BitMEX, one of the first cryptocurrency derivatives exchanges that currently ranks #1 in bitcoin USD futures volume. This episode reveals the thinking of a trader who’s been at the forefront of the market for three years. Arthur discusses the structural issues he thinks the CME and CBOE may face when they launch crypto trading in the U.S. next week, why his perpetual 100X leverage swap products is the most popular, and why he thinks valuation models for crypto are an exercise in futility. He shares how BitMEX deals with asset forks as well as exchange security, why Korean trading is booming, what he believes is going on with the Chinese crackdown and miners, and dispels any fantasy that one can get rich trading crypto from the beach.

An excerpt of this episode is published in Forbes. Full transcript will be available on Medium.

Kathleen Breitman is the co-founder and CEO of Tezos, a self-amending blockchain platform. In this episode Kathleen reveals how flaws in bitcoin's design inspired Tezos to bake governance mechanisms into the blockchain itself. She discusses the rationale around doing an uncapped crowdsale, why they chose to set up a non-profit in Switzerland to receive the funds, and how they have responded to DDOS and phishing attacks. Kathleen also discusses her identification as an anarchist-capitalist and its roots in cypherpunk, her love of Milton Friedman, her favorite bad TV, and what it's like being a husband wife founding team.

Helen Greiner was the co-founder of iRobot, the company behind the Roomba and PackBot, and is now the founder of CyPhy Works, a leading commercial drone company. In this episode of Flux, Helen reveals why timing the market is so critical for founders, what she's learned about product iteration, and why she thinks the sky is a natural superhighway for drone delivery. Helen also gets into her work with the Pentagon using the PackBot to save lives to Iraq, how to get more women into technology, her love of Star Wars, and what happened when she tried to fly her drone on the White House lawn.

Blake Scholl is the founder and CEO of Denver-based Boom, a supersonic jet company. Blake gets into how the Concorde business model was flawed, why it takes an outsider to re-ignite innovation in the industry, and how simulation software has greatly reduced the time and cost of plane design.Blake also reveals how he taught himself the basics of the business on Wikipedia, why dropping out of high school was one of the best things he did, and how bringing supersonic air travel to the masses will have an impact on everything from business, to leisure, to fundamental human relations.

Bill Doyle is executive chairman of Novocure, an Israeli company using an entirely new method to fight cancer: electric fields. Bill tells the story of the founder of Novocure, his unorthodox approach to problem-solving, and how he was able to commercialize a therapy that was considered voodoo science. He also discusses why the research grant process is broken and the FDA's challenge balancing progress with safety.

Bill has had a wide-ranging career in healthcare, spanning his time running medical device research at Johnson & Johnson to his role as chairman of Blink Health, a startup lowering prescription drug prices. Bill gets into what he thinks it takes to win as an entrepreneur, how he's learned about invention from Segway creator Dean Kamen, and why we're entering a golden age for medical innovation.

Natalya Bailey is co-founder and CEO of Accion Systems, an MIT spin-out commercializing miniature propulsion systems for satellites that enable them to maneuver in space.

Natalya reveals why legacy manufacturers are unable to build these non-traditional engines, how she's handled the jump from academia to business, and what she's learned from Bill Swanson of Raytheon about managing a team. She also discusses how the Apollo mission helped push computing forward, her interest in aliens and why space exploration is critical for our survival.

Gary Marcus, best-selling author and NYU professor, has spent decades studying how children learn and is a known critic of deep learning. Gary was the founder and CEO of Geometric Intelligence, which uses insights from cognitive psychology to build better AI systems. Gary discusses why we still have a long way to go to get to Strong AI and why his sparse data approach is so valuable. We also get into the challenges for AI startups competing with the resources of Google, how corporates aren't focused on what society actually needs from AI, his proposal to revamp the outdated Turing test, and why programming a robot to understand "harm" is so difficult.

Sophia Dominguez is co-founder and CEO of SVRF, a company making VR content discoverable. Sophia discusses how consumers are scared of the term "virtual reality", why nausea is critical in search rankings, how Snapchat will help bridge the gap to AR, and why Facebook's VR privacy policy is alarming. Sophia also reveals the challenges of being a woman in the industry, why building a company in New York is a better reality check than building in the Silicon Valley bubble, why VR zombies are a great alternative to coffee, and why VR art is amazing.

Paul Dabrowski is co-founder and CEO of Synthego, a company building a platform of tools for scientists. Paul discusses why CRISPR is much more precise than other gene editing techniques, how China has been pushing ethical boundaries, what it's like building a company with your brother, and how his time at SpaceX shaped the way he thinks.

Balaji Srinivasan is CEO of 21, a company building the machine payable web. Balaji discusses how his software enables you to earn bitcoin for doing tasks on your phone, why ranking inbound email by most recent first is inefficient, how China's special economic zones had such an impact, why preserving your personal runway is so important, and how Silicon Valley is an exporter of innovation culture.

Peter Platzer is co-founder and CEO of Spire, a company building one of the fastest growing satellite constellations. Peter discusses how his tiny satellites will deliver dramatically better weather forecasting, why private companies are getting into space, how he deals with the risk of rockets blowing up and why he considers himself a citizen of Planet Earth.

We'd love to hear from you! Email us at fluxpodcast@gmail.com or message us on our Facebook page FluxFeed.

Gabi Lewis is co-founder of Brooklyn-based Exo, a startup that makes cricket powder protein bars. Gabi talks about ordering 2,000 live crickets to his university housing, what they've learned from sushi's rise in America, and how they're marketing their insects.

We'd love to hear from you! Email us at fluxpodcast@gmail.com or message us on our Facebook page FluxFeed.

Matt Rendall is co-founder and CEO of Clearpath Robotics, a Canadian company automating dull, dirty and dangerous tasks. Clearpath manufactures and operates vehicles for warehouses and distribution centers – they are the self-driving car for indoor industrial tasks. Matt talks about how he made the jump from academia to business, Robotics as a Service, what automation means for jobs in the U.S., and his open letter against “killer robots.”

We'd love to hear from you! Email us at fluxpodcast@gmail.com, or message us on our Facebook page FluxFeed.

Philip Rosedale is the founder and CEO of High Fidelity, a company providing the building blocks for virtual worlds. Phillip discusses how Virtual Reality parallels the early Web, what he learned from building the virtual civilization Second Life, what it means to move from 2D to 3D browsing, the importance of trustworthy digital identities and whether we are all in a simulation.

Micah Winkelspecht, founder and CEO of Gem, on how he fell down the bitcoin rabbit hole, how the crypto community has evolved, why our healthcare system is so dysfunctional, and why blockchain is the best solution.